Website Portfolio > debtbusterloans.com gets AJAX (7)
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New landing page
This new design was an attempt to add clearer messaging and more elements to reinforce the users trust in the site/company. This included a single core message at the top (mirroring the PPC copy in use), three simple bullet points on the left, addition of "lender logo's" and the added prominence of the "security & Privacy" comment.
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AJAX Validation
One of the largest changes to the application form was the addition of AJAX (using prototype) to implement server side validation (the exact code that would run on a form submit) when the user tabs out of the field. This enables us to validate more accurately than javascript alone and we tick the users answers to give a sense of context within the page - and a sense achievement and progress.
Along with AJAX, I also added javascript to stop invalid characters (such as text in amount fields) to stop invalid input before the user even leaves the field. In this case we also added a change in background colour (for a flicker) to acknowledge the users key press.
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Tooltips
I implemented tooltip style help for the user, which enabled me to add more text than I had on previous versions of the application form and add some much needed explanation of some of the more complex fields (especially on later pages).
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Address search by postcode
This was one area I felt I could improve the users experience more than any other. By using a 3rd party address search behind the scenes I was able to remove several existing fields and look-up the address (bar the first line) from a postcode. This was implemented using AJAX and server side code.
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First line suggestions
Once I had searched for the postcode, I also had a list of possible "first lines". I again used AJAX to filter this list on the users selection and present a suggestion style pop-up to select their house. They are still able to manually enter their address (filtering this list as they type) but the look-up should improve speed and accuracy of entering the address - especially for long house and/or road names.
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Rest of application form
The next two pages of the application form follow exactly the same style as those already shown.
After testing this application form for a limited time, we saw a 2-5% improvement on click-through-rate on each of the pages, with a 30% improvement on the address page.
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Retrofitted to control
Due to company politics the new design was removed, but the benefits of the application form changes were kept, as I subsequently implemented them on the existing control. We continue to see the same improvements on this page, especially on the address search page. http://www.debtbusterloans.com/apply.aspx
